A TROPICAL JUNGLE. 357 it safe to come to anchor in the middle of the stream, though the watch-fires of the savages were still blazing brightly in the distance. During the night the wind blew violently, and the river was rough and agitated. We all went to sleep, therefore, feeling certain that no predatory canoes would venture to follow us.

In the morning there was a strong head-wind, and the temperature was so cold that I was obliged to wear my thick capote of camel's hair while I sat on deck, looking regretfully at the beautiful islands I was leaving behind me. Achmet heated and strained the honey given me by the Shillooks, which yielded between three and four quarts of rich liquid. While the men made fast to the bank for breakfast, I went on shore to get a glimpse of the country behind the forests. Paths trodden by wild beasts led through the walls of tangled vines that elsewhere were impenetrable, and I crept along them, under the boughs of strange trees and through thickets of luxuriant shrubs. At length I reached an open patch of grass four or five feet in height, and so dry and yellow that it snapped like glass under my feet. It was dotted with clumps of liigh shrubs, knotted all over with wild, flowering vines, which formed admirable lairs for the lions and leopards. There was a strong smell of lions about the place, and I deemed it prudent not to venture far, since the rank animal odor peculiar to that beast grew more marked the further I went. The jungle in which I stood covered a tongue of land inclosed between two coves of the river, and through the openings in the thickets I saw that it led to other open tracts further inland. The wind was blowing towards the river, and as I stood in the midst, contemplating the wild, lawless grouping of the different trees